PART 2 OF COURTNEY THORNE-SMITH

TRANSCRIPTS:

Courtney: Oh, they got dramatic. And that’s when we had to say things where it’s like, can you believe what I have to say or what I have to do? Like this was so hard. So Allison remembered that she was molested,
which is such a serious storyline. And then she went directly to her parents’ family picnic. And like, to take a minute and say, is this really how we want to address this? It was just like, issue of the week, issue of the week, issue of the week. Right. That’s true because it was just, it would gain momentum.

Colleen: You know, one of my favorite things is drunk Allison because I think that

Courtney: Oh, I love Drunk Allison.

Colleen: How much fun was it to play Drunk Allison?

Courtney: Well, Drunk Allison is my favorite. And it’s interesting. So doing the rewatch podcast, we were talking our first day and I I’ve been sober a long time I just celebrated 33 years sober so I turned a year sober my first day on Morrow’s place isn’t that amazing wow wow I call I mean I felt very protected so I got to go to all of that craziness sober can you imagine it would have happened if I was it would have been probably worse than Allison so so when I was playing
drunk Allison this is another interesting story. I actually haven’t told this yet about that time and the press at that time. So I’m playing drunk Allison. Everyone’s saying, you’re so good. I’m like, really, that’s crazy because I just wasn’t as open about it then because I was younger and it felt scary. Now it’s such a part of my life. I can’t have a conversation without mentioning it. But word got out that I was sober. And at the time, that was a story like now it’s not even a story like good for you you stopped drinking that’s great at the time it was a dramatic story and they contacted my publicist and they said we’re going to do a front page story on Courtney being getting sober and I think so I think drunk Allison was season two or three so I was three or four years sober I still felt pretty new and my publicist said you want to do the story and I said I don’t because, you know, we’re careful about separating press and I didn’t feel secure enough for my sobriety to talk about it. What if I talked about it and then I went out and I didn’t want anybody to think that you couldn’t stay sober like I really felt protective of it? I said, no, I don’t want to talk about it. And he went back to them and he said, again, people magazine, we’re going to run with it whether she talks to us or not. And he said, I don’t know anything about it, which wasn’t true. I I was very open to people close to me. He said, I don’t know anything about it, but do whatever story you need to do. And they didn’t run it.

Bridgett: Wow. Really?
Courtney: Can you imagine that is amazing? That would never happen. Can you imagine that happening today? It’s just like Jim Broughtman. Thank you, Jim Broughtman. He is my publicist. I adored him. What isn’t that incredible? Like today they would gossip and hearsay. First of all, it would be all over social media. But, you know, at this point, who cares? I’m proud of my sobriety. But isn’t that so different? The times that they had that respect. There was this sort of respect. There was this sort of respect that he said, she’s not going to talk about it. And somewhere there, someone that said, well, then let’s not do it. Like it probably it felt too salacious to do it if I wasn’t going to talk about it. And you know, that somebody there thought about the ramifications that could happen if they put a person in this situation. And I don’t, people don’t think about that or the people, people might think about that, but the people who are running with the story that just want to make the buck and run the story on another person’s personal life, they don’t think about the ramifications that it could have on that individual. Yeah. And now it was 30 years ago. So now attitudes about recovery have changed so much, right. So many people are open. Jamie Lee Curtis has saved. Who knows how many thousands of lives, how open she is, which I really admire. Um, so our ideas have changed. And at the time, it really felt scary and vulnerable to me. Yeah. And I remember asking me, I said, I’m not ready because I just don’t feel like an expert and I don’t want to put that out there. And, um, and they didn’t run it.

Colleen: That’s great. That’s great.

Courtney: It’s almost like the like the 20s when they’d say you don’t pose we’ll give you this story you don’t post that story yeah right right anything wow they’d be feeding it to them like feeding the stories to social media because I was what so I was I was 25 or 26 very young and the pressure I felt but I just knew intuitively it just didn’t feel right it just didn’t feel right And I’m proud of myself for standing up. And I’m really grateful that they didn’t run it because I think it just felt too vulnerable and scary for me at the time.

Bridgett: Right. I’m glad they respected you because now it would be a very different. There are no boundaries with social media. They just go after everybody. And a lot of times it’s not true.
Courtney: Right. So there are a lot of people who have podcasts who are very open to talk about this stuff. And I think that’s great. I think there’s a lot more openness and people get help sooner because it’s available. and there’s much like that intuition that you have. I always trust my gut. That’s why I meditate to sort of strengthen my intuition and my gut.

Colleen: Did you start meditating at a young age or was that something that you found in midlife?
Courtney I started young. I was always a searcher. I was always trying to find, I always wanted to feel better. I was always, you know, I had the crystals and the this and I’ve done all of it. And I would meditate off and on, but it’s in the last several years that I really, my 20 minutes in the morning are sacrosanct and I tried to do 20 minutes in the afternoon too. And, you know, probably a lot of why I’m so happy today. Did you hear it? Yeah.

Bridgett: Oh, I just heard. Yeah. It’s so funny.

Courtney: Probably a lot of why I’m so happy because I think, you know, people will say, I can’t meditate. I can’t meditate. And I always said, I had this new, I’m always trying to think of analogies to get people to meditate. Here’s my new one. I’ll share it with you. Okay. So, so picture, um, Harry Potter, Dumbledore’s library in Harry Potter, right? And there’s books from floors to infinity and they’re all spinning around. They’re swirling around, swirling around, swirling around, swirling around. And that’s what happens when you don’t meditate and you close your eyes and all your thoughts are spinning around, spinning around, spinning around, spinning around, spinning around, spinning around. That’s happening all the time. You just notice it when you close your eyes. When you meditate for a long time, bit by bit, you get to put those books away. They’re still there, but you get to put them away. So all of your thoughts aren’t swirling around all the time. So that over time with meditation, you close your eyes and it’s quiet. And you get to a place where your mind is quiet and you get to go, oh, I’m going to think about that or I’m going to think about that during your day so that you’re not constantly battling a million thoughts, right? A lot of anxiety for people, I think, is just their brains are so active because they don’t know you can train your brain. You can have a quieter brain without drugs, alcohol, like meditation has given me. I feel today the most of the time how I what I was trying to get from alcohol. Alcohol calmed my brain. I just wanted to feel okay. Alcohol made me feel okay now. That’s how I feel the vast majority of the time.

Colleen: That’s incredible.
Bridgett: It is. And so many, you know, top executives, they meditate. My husband is really, he likes to do it. He uses the calm app and meditates and I’m one that needs.It’s funny, I find for me, if I’m doing like yoga, that will help me focus. But I’m one of those people that needs to calm down.

Courtney: Well, that’s a moving meditation. I did yoga for a long time. And I don’t do yoga now, but I do, I started doing weights for my, you know, for my bones. Bone health. Yes. But that’s great. yoga anymore. But his, his guru said, let me try that LSD. And he took this huge amount of LSD. And Rondas is watching terrified. And he said he didn’t change. And he was like, all right. It didn’t change him. Because he was already at such a high level of consciousness from years of meditation that it didn’t change it. It didn’t do anything to him. Wow. And I think a lot of people try it and their mind doesn’t why like in the first one or two times they tried and they give up because they’re like, I can’t do it. It’s a practice. It’s like here’s my other analogy that just came to me, which is it’s like you’re on a hike and you’re fighting through the brambles, right? You’re fighting through the brambles and for a while, right? For like maybe a couple months, you close your eyes and it’s noise. And then you finally break through and you get to this beautiful quiet meadow with spaciousness. And if you believe in God, you probably have a sense of God. I do happen to believe in a higher power I call God.
And I have this sense of spaciousness and love. And now that I know the way, my path, I can get there quickly. But you have to fight through the noise. And you have, that’s why it’s a practice. Right. Yeah. Doesn’t happen right away. Are you, have you tried 20 minutes a day or 10? No, but I think, I believe five minutes every day is better than an hour once a week. Like, can you just getting quiet, sit up in bed five minutes a day, close your eyes. Can you start there and then work your way up to seven minutes, then 10 minutes? Now I love my meditation. It’s my respite. But I had to fight through that noise and din. And I can’t possibly sit still for 20 minutes. Now it’s my favorite part of my day. for meditation. And yes, yes, yes, but the peace I feel is, is worth everything, right? To go through my life feeling peaceful, serene, connected, that I can trust my intuition, that someone asked me a question, I take a minute, and I wait to hear a yes or no. Like,
is that a yes or is that a no?

Bridgett: That’s so That’s so cool. That’s amazing. That’s why there’s, we just all have so much still to learn at the stage of life.
Courtney: We’re just constantly learning. Yes. You know. We don’t have to buy into the narrative that this is a sad time of life. We don’t have to, that narrative, it’s just not true. My lived experience is this is the best time of my life so far right like I loved when my kid was little I love being young but in terms of how I feel about myself about my body about my life about my friends this is honestly the best time of my life

Bridgett: yeah yeah we agree I don’t know we’re nodding in agreement

Colleen: I would say you need to write a book. That’s all I’m going to say you need to write a book.

Courtney: I just finished a book. Oh, that’s so funny. You would say that. I just, so I wrote a novel. I finished it right before my son was born. Right. That kind of shut me down. And so part of this, like as Jack grew up, I started taking, I started taking writing classes. And I just finished a novel, which is interesting. It’s sort of about what we’re talking about now. It’s called perfect. My marriage broke up a few years ago. And I know it sounds, it was, we really,
we’re really good friends. We just, sometimes people grow together. Sometimes people grow apart. We just, in the end, we’re just very different. But we’re very good friends. It’s a very sweet. It’s the world’s happiest divorce. Isn’t it really amazing? So grateful that we both chose to be kind. Thank you, God. So lucky. But even in a peaceful divorce is difficult. And I was reading a lot of divorce books. And in one of the books that said, you’ll find out who your friends are. And I thought, I know who my friends are. I have amazing friends. My ex has amazing friends. And because we had such a peaceful breakup, no one had to choose sides. But I started to think about who would someone be who didn’t have friends. Like, what would that be? And I started, this character started, her divorce, she ends up finding friends and finding out about herself. And women’s journeys, it’s also very funny, but women’s journeys to find out who they are, it’s really all I’m interested it. Right. I want to talk about, like I said, authenticity is the most important thing to me. I want to know. I want to have this kind of conversation all the time. I don’t want to talk about the weather. I want to talk about no small talk going through no who care what do i care about small talk right i have tv i want to have these conversations so um i just finished it so now uh we’ll see i’ll come back on when it gets yes please we will have you back on when it’s published yeah that’s so exciting that’s great it is exciting and i loved loved writing it and That’s one of the things that I discovered when my son got independent, right? I got to rediscover this thing that I’ve always loved that I didn’t have to. I was never one of those people who could put my kid down for a nap and write for an hour. Like I put him down for nap and I took a nap. There was no, like I didn’t have that. Right. Now I have time to go, what did I always want to do? And I never did. Right. And I have this time to think about my characters and write and I just started another novel because I have time now. Oh, that’s awesome. This thing I love. Yeah. And I think when other people, other women, especially our age, hear stories like that. It, it lends to them a chance like, oh, this is something I can do. This is, you know, somebody, yeah, it’s wonderful to hear that. Go on Coursera. Go to your college’s extension program take a class join a writing group if that’s what you want to do but a girl another girlfriend of mine just went back to graduate school just because she was interested in something like I went to um University of Pennsylvania online there’s there’s so many options if you don’t know what you want to do take a bunch of classes and see what sparks you right walk through the aisles of Michaels. See what looks like fun.

Bridgett: Yeah. I love that.
Courtney: I that makes this part of life so like here’s the thing when as you know when you’re a mom you’re so low on your list of priorities because you’ve committed to raising another person that’s really important and it’s important and it’s great and it’s hard and it’s wonderful all the amazing things now it’s almost like we’re little again you get to go I want to do today right imagine when you were a little kid and it was summer before people were scheduled and we had to go to camp like when we were little and you got to go I can do anything I want today yeah People always say, oh, you’re so lucky you have that girl’s night. And I go, well, you can do it. Like, do you have time now. Do a week. Like, I’m the one who hosts it. I make baked potatoes and salad. And that’s it. Like, that’s what we do. Do it. Create a girls night for yourself. Make dinner for your friends. Invite over a group of women every week. You have time now. Right.

Colleen: Yes, Bridget. I’m only two blocks away,
Bridget. I know you are. I will make potatoes.

Courtney: Here’s what I recommend. If you poke holes in them, I coat them in olive oil, post your salt, bake them on 400 for an hour. They get this crispy salt with no with no aluminum foil. No aluminum because you want it crispy salty. And it’s just for two of you, you can do it in the, um, eat the air fry. But otherwise in the oven.

Bridgett: Oh, yeah, I do love my air fryer. But we have four or five friends of ours that we kind of do the same thing. We don’t see each other every year. Yeah, we, one of them is one of my sisters. And then Colleen and two other friends and our husbands get along great. And sometimes they go off and have a bourbon night. And we go off and have a night just to talk and have some wine. Usually it’s a coffee shop. It’s usually coffee or a coffee shop. Yeah, we might just meet at a coffee shop or sit at somebody’s table or something like that, which we had said when we started the podcast, we wanted people to feel like they’re sitting there having a cup of coffee with their friends at our kitchen table. And just check the way. Yeah, yeah. And that’s kind of what is.

Colleen: And that’s certainly not something we would have ever thought to do. Bridget and I did not come from a background of, let’s do a podcast.

Bridgett: Oh, we didn’t know what it was. Like, I was an elementary school teacher. She was a lawyer and a Pilates instructor. So, you know, we actually came up with it sitting together at lunch with those friends. And one of them had a very different podcast. And Colleen and I were just talking about this time of life and not getting answers we wanted from physicians and about what’s happening to And I mean, we were like, oh, okay, well, we’ll just do it. That was five years ago, about five years ago now. You just, we figured we’d try it if it would work.

Colleen: It was, and we had no idea. It was like right before the menopause, midlife women conversation took off. It was like right before the pandemic. And it’s been an absolute joy. We have had so much fun. We’ve met amazing people. amazing women like you. It’s just such a joy for us.

Courtney: And isn’t that great? And you’re a part of that conversation changing the paradigm. I know all of my friends are happier now than they’ve ever been. So it’s like, where are these people who are so sad? I know. And it’s almost like it’s a self -fulfilling prophecy. If you go, oh, it’s going to be sad then, then you’re going to be sad. But if you say, what an exciting time, then all of a sudden, we live in a time when everything’s at our fingertips.

Colleen: If you want to learn how to do something, look at a YouTube video. That’s what we did. It’s true, though. It’s all perspective. It’s a lot of perspective. And a lot of times women think they have to either be really sad that that part of life is over, but they can’t be happy at the same time. Like, you can have two emotions. You can have like that melancholy of, oh, this stage of my life is done. a really great full life.
Courtney: I don’t want him to worry about me. Right. And there’s, there’s some study recently that said the best indicator of a child’s future happiness is having a happy mom. So have a full life for your kids. You don’t have to say, I’m waiting on my kids to come home. Well, obviously, I will miss him. Absolutely. But also, I’ll be having a lovely time and he’ll come home to a happy mom like he does now.

Bridgett: Right. Yeah, that, I mean, that is amazing. And my children have noticed that they’re, they both seem like, gosh, mom, that’s pretty impressive. You all have done this. That’s pretty amazing that you’ve done this. And that makes you feel good from your kids. Right.

Courtney: When they see you try, well, when they see you try something and you’re happy, but not even if it works or it doesn’t work, but you’re just happy in the process like you’re just happy doing it and also it’s good to show them the bumps like i used to love it when i i did some sitcoms when jack was little and i i would come home and i love to share with him when something ridiculous would happen because i wanted to say look this i look how i the silly thing happened it was so embarrassing and i’m fine right or this didn’t work out and i’m fine it’s good to have them see you try something yeah what happened i tried it didn’t work I’ll try something else. Right. Because then they don’t feel like if something happens,
it’s not the end of the world. If they don’t, something doesn’t work out for them. They see that. They don’t feel like it’s the end of the world. And I do think that that’s something that is nice about this time in the world, that there’s times when people, they don’t have to be perfect, like you said, how hard you were and I was on myself and my appearance, I’m so happy to see advertisements with people of all sizes now. I’m so happy to see women out there feeling comfortable with how they look. And, you know, out there just modeling stuff, no matter what size, I love it. I’m thrilled. Like when I go to the beach and I see anybody in any size in a yay you know good for you yeah perfect is a lie right right if you’re chasing that you if you say I’m going to love myself when I’m perfect you never get to love yourself and because there is no perfect it is what is it um perfectionism is the thief of joy yes absolutely just say right now right now I’m going to love
myself I’m going to enjoy this day it’s going to be messy good things are going happen but you know bad things happening doesn’t mean I’m bad, good things happening doesn’t mean I’m good. Life is up and down and that’s okay.
I’m just going to do the best I can. I remember when my son was in there, they were talking about good enough mom. And I was like, no, no, no, I have to be the perfect mom. And then I was like, what am I doing? Like that means he has to be the perfect kid to show I’m the perfect mom. Right. That’s exhausting. Like how about we’re all just doing the best we can, loving each other and fumbling our way through another day. And so help each other out instead of judgment.
Bridgett: Oh, yeah. Help someone who needs not judgment. There is nothing worse than feeling the mom judgment of other people. And a lot of times I didn’t feel it from other moms.I felt it from other people. Mother -in -laws.

Colleen: Are you saying mother -in -laws?

Bridgett: I mean, perhaps. Or just people like you go in the grocery and your kid. want you want the mom when your kids like the mom your kids crying on the plane and the mom goes let me take them right yeah that’s what we want to do we want to say when your kids throwing a tantrum i’m so sorry can i help yeah yeah what can i do right right right exactly we don’t come at each other with judgment like yeah what that is we do that that yesterday it was so funny because i was flying back from boston with my husband and there was a family in front of us and they were adorable two little girls and they weren’t at all they were just being little girls and they were talking about this and that when i’m getting on the plane i’m gonna smile because i get a snack and i did that they talk and the dad looked at us and said this is my life and i said well that was my life so don’t worry about like he almost was apologizing i’m like don’t apologize that was our life we get it you know yeah yeah it’s true we could we could talk to you I have no say in it.
Colleen: Would you want to do another sitcom or series again?

Courtney: I love the sitcom life I love because it’s really humane hours. But I really feel surrender. I’m very happy in my life. I kind of feel like like I said, My spiritual practice right now is walking through the open door. So,
you know, if something appeared and it was good, I’d go, okay, but I’m not going to, my life isn’t missing anything. My life is full and wonderful. You know, if a great job or a handsome prince happened to walk through my door, that would be lovely, but it doesn’t mean my life isn’t wonderful and complete as is. So I’m open. We’ll see.
Colleen: And you’re saying I’m open to whatever is out there that’s available to me. And that’s great.

Courtney: I think for women, because a lot of us who are raised to say yes and we didn’t mean it. So I don’t say say yes. I kind of go, all right. It doesn’t mean I don’t go to a party. I don’t want to go to because I don’t like big parties. But I just go, all right. If something’s offered and it feels right. And my gut says yes. I go, all right, let’s try that. But doesn’t work. We’ll try something else. That’s all right. to read it and promote it and talk to you about it.
Colleen: Oh, thank you. You’re so sweet.

Courtney: Thank you. So good to meet you both. That was really so much fun.